Once the threat to the painting is gone, it opens back up.

Does he mention that? And if that's the case why have an override button at all?

[deleted]

The painting sits exposed most of the time by default. When a threat is detected, the glass slams shut. This includes heat and anything that makes a loud noise, as a loud noise could hit a gunshot or explosion or something.

Miles arrogantly installs an override so he can drop the glass if he wants to. This way he can do things like play loud music or throw a party and not have glass between him and the painting.

As for avoiding glass on the ground, I see that they have shoes or are just walking around it. The glass isn’t everywhere, it’s just where the statues were smashed.

I don’t believe it’s mentioned but it’s inferred the first few times it’s triggered. Override is cuz he’s a douche

That 1st part makes sense. But the 2nd part, if you've ever worn flat open toe shoes like that before when glass smashes it's pretty difficult for it not to fly into your shoe or foot as well. I smashed a glass once while wearing flip flops and it got all over my feet

In regards to shoes, we don’t know that one one was affected. They’re all running on adrenaline at that point, if they had been hurt they w probably wouldn’t react. And after the explosion, I’m sure it was just secondary anyway.

You shouldn’t, it’s dumb. But miles is dumb.

I was really loving the movie until the ending.

Rian Johnson has a habit of writing scripts where the big reveal is....nothing.

In this case, the entire movie was building up to a big clever satisfying reveal, and the reveal was...nothing. Basically there was no big mystery, just a guy acting stupid and obvious.

I get that the big twist is supposed to be that Ed Norton's character is actually really dumb, despite being a billionaire, but is that really a good reveal when the character was acting dumb the entire movie?

The insurance insisted on the glass mechanism, that has nothing to do with him. He just added the override mechanism because of his ego.

The Mona Lisa glass thing was so annoying. It was so obviously going to come up later too. What a bad movie.

I think you really didn’t get what the movie is going for. There’s a whole bunch of stuff going on, and Miles being dumb isn’t supposed to be the singular “reveal” point of the movie. It’s just a part of it.

Similar opinion here, I liked the setting and the development but once we got to the big 3rd act reveals things got really dumb real fast and not just from the bad guy but from the good person, it seemed nonsensical how they arrived to the destruction instead of something like recording the bad person confessing or something like that...

It's shown. You can hear the glass retract. That's how it keeps closing over and over every time Duke's phone dings.

Loved it tbh, it was meant to be a bit silly

The film was shitty and lazy, that's your answer

It’s not mentioned, but if you pay attention, you can see it reopening in the background of some of the scenes.

My question was why it slammed shut the first few times she broke the glass pieces, but then stopped (presumably staying closed).

If you watch it again you’ll notice it goes up and down every time Dukes phone dings a Google alert

Are we allowed to say this on the internet? As someone who liked Knives Out, this was hella disappointing. It’s not clever to lampshade the use of the obvious suspect twice in a row.

It eventually got old, but I was giggling along with those for a while. I'm not usually one for repetition gags like that, but something about noticing all the weird things that set it off tickled me for a good third of the movie.

There was a point where the phone was dinging and the shield kept slamming shut and all I could think of was the Sister Christian scene in Boogie Nights.

The movie isn’t leading up to a twist. It’s leading up to the Whodunnit. The twist is in the very middle, where we learn about the twin swap.

If you’ve paid any attention to the movie you already know Miles is an idiot and the murderer by the time we get there. I mean, you know it when he hands the glass to Duke.

If you were expecting a third act twist, you’re watching the wrong script.

[deleted]

[deleted]

Yeah I felt like it was pretty clear the “big reveal” was the fact it was >! the twin sister and they were investigating a murder before they even got there as opposed to random shit happening while on island because he’s an idiot. !<

Great movie and very intriguing

I disliked it alot. It was incredibly dumb. The plan of hers was to blow up the building? How did she know that wouldn't kill all of them? She didn't. That explosion definitely should have killed them. Then miraculous everyone is alive with superficial injuries and now they see the Mona Lisa unprotected (signifying this whole time that was her plan with the fuel rock). An extremely convoluted way to destroy one of the most beloved pieces of art to get back at one guy.

And especially when they all run out as the placd is exploding. There should have been glass flying EVERYWHERE.

[deleted]

recording a confession is pretty cliche, but thats where miles played it smart because he doesnt actually confess so theres nothing to record

TBH it’s pretty hard to accumulate the billions of dollars needed for someone to own an island which takes away from the movie for me/s

its extremely clever if you engage the movie for what it is, which isnt a real whodunit

Benoit Blanc has a whole scene talking about Miles' shortcomings that lead to one of my favorite lines in the movie.

If their feet hurt will it contribute anything to the plot?? It'll just be a few additional dialogues or changing everything after which is something they don't want. pls don't treat a movie like real life or at lease ask something that made an actual hole in the plot.

Also depends on the type of glass, some glass shatters in sharp shards, other glass shatters into more gravel like pieces.

His comeuppance isn't arrived at via the napkin, or the loss of his company, it's in the unavoidable fact that he'll be forever known as the idiot who destroyed the Mona Lisa.

I think it’s just luck. If you look at the glass when Helen is running towards the Mona Lisa, there’s hardly any glass in the spots where her feet land despite being everywhere else.

And they all should have died in that explosion.

Preach

Just look how fast todays tech megabillionaires gained their wealth. When I was 20 nobody even knew Musk, Zuckerberg or Bezos...And Gates was at somewhat around 40 or 50 billions at that time. Today every second CEO of any medium Tech company has dozens of billions under his pillow.

Reality must be suspended for this movie to be any fun I guess. Finding plot holes or applying real world ethics doesn’t work here.

I thought all the “glass” was actually Klear? That’s why I assumed it functioned and broke differently than real glass

It stayed closed because everyone started smashing stuff and the scene turned into chaos rather than one loud noise every ten seconds when she would break something

One thing that didn’t sit quite right with me is that they never mentioned why Miles sent Andi an invitation in the first place

I digress, but I feel like the inherit trait of mysteries and big-reveal stories is that after the build up, if done correctly, we always expect something we couldn't possible imagine but that is never a case or ,I doubt, even a possibility.

I love mysteries but endings almost never live up to the expectations. iono..

To answer your first question, it’s not a noise that triggers it. Miles says very clearly that it’s buggy with the signal to the secret override and goes off any even the smallest of alerts on a phone. He doesn’t have a phone so it’s never a problem for him. That’s why it’s linked with the Google alerts going off on Duke’a phone.

The film wasn't leading to a reveal. The "reveal" happened halfway through when we learn that Andi is actually her twin sister. Throughout the film Miles makes it abundantly clear he's the murderer. He hands Duke the poisoned glass. He's seen with the gun before "Andi" gets shot. It isn't rocket science. Even the conclusion of the film is telegraphed heavily with the often repeated line about him being remembered in the same breath as the Mona Lisa, him having the Mona Lisa, and him having a very dangerous hydrogen-based fuel in his entire house.

Also, aside from the actual logistics of keeping the painting, the slamming of the glass shut works as a really great thematic element. Tying so many of the scenes together as a great illustration of the rising tensions.

I’m glad people are liking it!

The point is that everyone fails to realize he is a moron. The whole reason he isn't a suspect at first is that he seemed too smart to do something so obvious, but the reveal is that he isn't and the obvious solution is true.

You see miles take the gun and the phone too.

But, the glass thing is what primes you to keep your eye on him.

I assumed the logic was "I invited her to my get-together, so clearly I didn't know she was dead and had no lingering bad feelings toward her."

Miles is revealed as an idiot from the second he admits to not being the one who created the boxes, his weird way with words, and the reveal he did not put the murder mystery together. Everything about him is pugnacious and despicable and it's only rhe absolute spectacle of the island (and the sycophantic behaviour of the guests) that brightens his dimwits for barely an hour of the screen time. That is not a twist. It's a sad revelation to a foregone conclusion. Like Brendan finding Emily dead in a sewer.

>The painting sits exposed most of the time by default. When a threat is detected, the glass slams shut. This includes heat and anything that makes a loud noise, as a loud noise could hit a gunshot or explosion or something.

The glass is continually shown covering and uncovering the eyes on the painting. It's a metaphor -- there's something covering our vision -- or is there? Or is it actually clear as glass even though we feel like there's something between us and the mystery?

Sometimes with movies you need to exercise your suspension of disbelief. This means, basically, that in order to enjoy movies, we sometimes overlook instances of the movie not following logical rules of the real world.

It would make the movie cumbersome and exhausting if they slowed it down to have realistic results of glass being all over the ground. In fact, the unrealness of it is highlighted when they slide cartoonishly across the floor as though the glass were ice.

Movies are rarely realistic, and ones that are more realistic tend to be slow and ponderous because life doesn't exist at an entertaining pace.

Why wouldn’t Miles freak the minute he saw Andi if he thought she was dead?

It's everywhere when the Glass Onion explodes lol

I think it was said that he invited her to all his parties, and that she didn’t go to the last one? It’s possible/probable given the time it took to construct the invitation boxes that her invitation was already in the process of being shipped when she made her threats.

Benoit had managed to delay the news of Andi's death from the press for a bit, so it would have been suspicious if Miles knew she was dead.

She was trying to save millions of people who would otherwise be killed when the unstable Klear started being used publicly.

I think it's the opposite - that any of them were a viable possibility. I feel like for whodunnit movies, most viewers don't want some big "out of left field" twist to be the answer. They are given multiple possibilities that all makes sense along the way, and you just don't know which one it is.

If you are given all those options throughout the movie, and then none of them are the answer and its something else entirely, that would make the rest of the movie seem completely pointless imo.

But why did he try to kill Andi's sister if he knew by that point —Duke told him— that the real Andi was dead.

He kinda did

He said something along the lines of “your not supposed to be here”

Yes he says it's motion and sound reactive. He spends a good deal of time explaining it. Idk how you didn't notice unless you went piss or were using your phone

Question stands. He still knocked her out and left her in a running car. Seems odd that he isn’t more concerned by her arrival as well as the fact she’s playing coy about what he did to her.

I could’ve missed details that tackle this point, but feels like a huge plot hole.

Regardless, fun movie, but I didn’t enjoy it nearly as much as Knives Out and prefer Brothers Bloom. That stated, I likely be excited for the next one and any after. Even flawed, still an enjoyable watch.

The Mona Lisa/Klear stuff was a bit too convoluted for me, same with the sweatshop punchline.

I thought that the Miles handing Andi a scotch with soda as her favourite drink was a trap to see If she's the real Andi, as he knew that Andi actually favored something else... Then again, Rian Johnson likes to place missdirects in his movies, Miles even says so.

[deleted]

It almost feels like the painting is compared to the billboard in the great Gatsby, as if it watches and knows all

The mona lisa and the glass onion itself are the same thing - an anti-metaphor. Something people make deeper than it really is. The eyes in particular are something people focus on a lot, but in reality it’s simply a very well done portrait, archetypal of the sort of commissioned portraits by nobles in the Renaissance.

The fact that it’s even there is supposed to represent that Bron is tacky and doesn’t know anything about art, same reason the Rothko piece behind the dining table is upside down.

“yOu juST woULdn’T gEt iT” - Joaquin Phoenix, after I wasted 2 hours of my life

Rian Johnson, Todd Phillips, and Adam McKay oughta get an island together where they circle jerk each other for being much smarter than their dummy audiences

No! It's just dumb!

This movie coming out just in time for Elon Musk to be revealing himself as a bumbling ignorant buffoon and thus these two events (this release of this movie and Musk unraveling) synergistically coming together to shatter the genius benevolent billionaire narrative that has been shoved down our throats for the past few decades puts this movie in a particular god tier category for me.

Ok but shouldn't the climax of a Whodunnit be the reveal of...who dun it?

I don't think it's unreasonable to expect that in a murder mystery movie.

Also if the big twist is the twin sister thing, that's a pretty lame twist.

Yea that was also really dumb.

"Yea I was gonna power my entire country with this super energy efficient fuel, but since it got some bad publicity, so I'm not anymore" What?!

We literally tolerate insane human rights abuses from Saudi Arabia for access to their oil.

And the whole bit about the fuel being super combustible... how is that a downside exactly?

I get it's probably not a good idea to fill a blimp with it, but combustibility is a pretty good aspect for a fuel source to have lol.

Lmao, the delivery was just too perfect

Ok well that's a pretty cheap "big reveal". I didn't find that very clever or satisfying. I was kindof hoping the movie was building to something bigger.

The entire point is to make it painfully obvious that the painting will be involved later in the movie. I found it really annoying. My only complaint with the movie

Cinemasins is really responsible for a lot of braindead movie takes.

I imagine the French government would lock his ass up, wouldn't they?

When it’s something as stupid as “blow the fucking building that we are all in” I’d argue it’s really hard to suspend reality

Horrible movie. Way OTT in the end. Such a disappointment after Knives Out.

This isn't a problem with the film, it's a cinema sin.

My main gripe was the dubious selfish motivation behind her desperate pumping of that override button. Helen is willing to destroy a 500-year old priceless world treasure to fulfill her personal revenge on Miles. She could have done this in a much smarter way than waving that flimsy napkin at Miles, insulting him, giving him every chance to destroy the only evidence against him, and then go on a reckless vandalism spree. Helen actually was also duuuumb.

If an inventor blew up his own mansion and the most famous piece of art in history would you want to be first in line to try the new invention?

There aren't actually famous independent detectives in the real world, I found this hard to get over.

He has the glass open so he can look directly into its eyes, he says this in that scene

And why did he send Andi a box?

The worst part is filmmakers are beginning to respond to them, films increasingly have complicated and pointless explanations for things that just don't matter.

Oh that’s friggin brilliant about the Rothko good eye.

OP is talking about the glass going back down. Norton"s character explained the override button, but not how the security system itself decides the "threat" is gone and can lower the glass. It is not obvious what makes the glass lower on its own.

I started to think maybe it wasn't so complicated when all the names were in alphabetical order. Andi. Birdie. Claire. Duke. All the names aren't like that but for a sec I thought I was doing an LSAT logic puzzle.

I have zero clues to why you're getting down votes. There is no explanation to how the security system determines the "threat" is gone and can lower the glass again on its own. Is it just timed? Is it different based on the "threat"? When would the override be needed then?

Oh was it? I didn't understand what the point of smashing all the glass was. In fact this would make the explosion more deadly. Need to watch again!

He never wanted the estrangement between them, she was the one who left the company because he was crossing a line with the fuel. He’s delusional about a lot of things, including thinking he could bring her back into the fold somehow even after screwing her over legally. I imagine he had also invited her the previous year to the “cruise thing” Whiskey mentioned.

This time around, there was a lead time of several weeks or months for the construction of the invitation boxes, so the order was already placed long before the murder. After the murder there would be no reason to cancel Andi’s box delivery, perhaps he wouldn’t have even thought to try.

OP is asking why it opens on its own (not closes).

It’s simpler than that, the boxes were already made before the email and murder. It would have been harder and more suspicious to try to stop her delivery.

Agree on the Klear stuff. The sweatshop punchline was around Birdy's sweatpants brand and her assuming a sweatshop is just a shop that specializes in sweatpants.

True. Full hillbilly came out.

He has the picture of him shirtless, which is basically Brad Pitts body from fight club with Nortons face. I do like how all the clues are in plain sight tho lol

The problem they mentioned wasn’t that it’s combustible— it was that the molecules are smaller than methane so pipes built for methane would leak the stuff all over.

That line was so satisfying. I hate it with a passion when people say "it's so dumb it's genius". No, it's dumb and you're dumb, shut up

I was expecting this to be a plot point- where somehow Norton's shoes get stolen and he remains stuck on his little island surrounded by glass shards of his misspent fortune unable to walk out. Was left a bit disappointed that it was just smashing his stuff for the sake of it.

It was super annoying yeah. But also, it didn’t have that big of a role in the movie.

The thing that really tripped me was how they were not shocked with the girl being alive hanging out with them when they read the news that she was dead.

I thought the same thing.

You say that like the genre of the movie is not a clue kind of movie

Hmm yeah. That does seem like a plot hole.

Honestly it wasn’t a well thought out movie imo. It doesn’t make sense for the Mona Lisa to react to sound or to open back up since a thief can still just grab it as long as they are quiet. And if they make a noise, they can just wait for it to reopen. There were also other parts like how they had a extra bracelets for the detective AND Andi when Miles didn’t expect either of them to come and how Duke never realized the gun pressed against his cock was stolen (which, side note, isn’t a great place to keep a gun in case it misfires). Also parts like how the book stopped a bullet at not too far range and why Blanc was given Klear at the beginning and kept the volatile explosive in his pocket the whole movie. Last ones just a personal thing but it made no sense how Miles helped everyone in the beginning. This idiot with no money somehow got them all jobs/startups? Seems like the director of the movie was as smart as miles and just didn’t think things through a whole lot

It gets worse when they read the news that indeed she is dead. They really are not surprised about the other one

Just watched this myself, and the more stand-out obvious thing that didn’t make sense from a writing standpoint (at all), is >!why didn’t he also shoot Blanc? In fact, once he saw him on the island, why wasn’t he the only one he killed? Benoit was the only one that posed an actual threat, he had no way to defend himself (or to flee), and since Miles clearly knew he killed the sister (especially after seeing the death announcement), why wouldn’t he just shoot Benoit?!<

They must have been stoked when Musk so publicly confirmed the main theme of the film in the lead up to its release

I agree with you. The plot holes go on for miles and the explosion is particularly obnoxious. Which is why I made my above statement in trying to understand the intentions of the filmmakers…..which I believe was solely to give the audience a good time and have fun doing it.

The override is "needed" because Bron likes having control. He wants to be able to view the Mona Lisa without any glass in the way, any time he wants, regardless of anything going on. He thinks the security is over sensitive, and it triggers too easily, so it put in an override that lets him have control. He's such a man-child that he can't even wait quietly for it to disengage. He's probably even touched the painting before.

We're asking about the security system itself, not his desire to override. What is it about the system that makes it remove the glass protective barrier on its own (no override)?

Okay, so, I get that it’s a whodunnit and without him, the story just stops dead, but… well, here goes:

>!Why wouldn’t Miles just also kill Benoit?? He had the perfect opportunity to fix the whole situation and only shoots one of the two people standing in front of him, defenseless. The woman he thought he already killed (for the same reasons) and the one person on the island that was a definite threat to him, a clever detective that could only end up exposing him, why wouldn’t he also be a target?!< Or, is that just too obvious and we’re supposed to not even consider that obvious question amidst all the “layers” of misdirection?

Overall, the writing and dialogue are fun. Clever and unexpected twists made for an interesting story, but that question’s been eating at me. I’m beginning to think Rian doesn’t ever take a step back and look at what he’s making from a holistic standpoint. Sure, each twist is clever, every character well-considered, but the outer plot falls apart for me once I ask myself that question.

And they said you can hear it retract, as in open again

Here:

1.Ding

2. Security glass closes (because of ding)

3. Security glass then opens (why?)

Is it timed? How does the security system determine the threat is gone?

He also says that he wanted to look her in the eyes. So that’s the reason for the override. He thinks he can have the best of both worlds. Have him be able to look at it and also have it protected. It was just another one of his dumb ideas.

He also said he wanted his name said in the same breath as the Mona Lisa. Witch at the end it will because he got it destroyed.

That seems like the most logical reason, yes. That and other sensors to determine active threats like heat, etc.

There is probably an initial dB sensor. If a sound occurs over a certain threshold, the barrier closes as a precaution. Then after say 10 seconds, if no further threats are detected, it opens back up.

In reality the painting would be enclosed at all times. But the opening/closing is clearly a thematic device that doesn't need so much thought put into the technicalities of how/why it works the way it does

With Rian Johnson movies, suspension of disbelief is basically a requirement.

I understand thematic devices, but also happen to enjoy discussing engineering and technology. 🤷

Appreciate the input!

Then you should've been able to figure out how it works, no?

Oh, you're actually snarky and rude? Got it. Moving on.

Not trying to be. You said you enjoy conversations about engineering and technology, so I thought you would've easily come to the same conclusion

Rothko's get hung upside down at exhibitions rather often. A mondrian has been hanging upside down for 77 years. In a deeper sense modern art was adopted by Rockefeller and his cronies wholesale after Diego Riveria painted a mural that offended him on his building, the philistine had it smashed. Modern art was seen as vacous and inoffense 'free enterprise painting' which could be a commodity and status symbol without any inconvenient symbolism or meaning. It has since been heavily backed by the establishment, though deeply unpopular with the wider public. The CIA at the least destroyed the careers of critics and art lecturers to promote it.

just a simple explanation for that would be suffice, that being Miles is one of the dumbest in the knives out universe.

Yeah but that wasn't the original plan, Helen found the key evidence and for some reason took the original in front of the killer who, by this point, still should have a gun... And when he burns it she and Blanc figure the destruction plan out, which depended on her being able to reach that button before the guy with a pistol on hand. Pretty dumb ending.

I expected something clever like that being a dummy napkin for him to burn and be confident he's clear or some other clever method, not here Helen remember you can make the house explode and survive unscathed to then press a button that makes the Mona Lisa burn before the killer with a gun stops you...

The stupidest bit was his new energy source. Which would be worth literally trillions of dollars. Even if there were venting issues they would be quickly resolved. He had basically found a way to power cities with minimal effort.

The court case made zero sense. The significance of the napkin would have meant nothing. Who built the company. Who made it a reality. Why would Andy be 100% cut out even if Miles did come up with the original idea. Andy was the one who made it a reality. Complete nonsense. Why wouldn’t she then expose the energy source as dangerous. Totally illogical.

But they didn't know whe was dead until the end, except for the billionaire.

But that’s why it’s a solid?

There's an old question in writing: "What kills a vampire?" The answer is not garlic, or silver, or sunlight, or a stake through the chest. It's whatever the author decides kills vampires.

The security system, like a vampire, is fictional. It functions however the script says it functions, and the audience is not given a great deal of info about the system. We know it is sensitive, that it goes off when phones get notifications, and that the glass retracts on it's own. We are not told what triggers the end of the security lockdown, only that any lockdown Bron can't control is too much.

The glass goes down at some point, and ultimately that point is when it's convenient for the writer/director/editor for it to go down.

It’s a Chekov’s Gun

I think it goes like this: No more noise, no more glass wall. Simple ping noise wasn’t a large enough threat for the system to stay closed. That’s how I saw it at least. It’s dumb, like Miles.

it’s a movie.

Nah I loved the rest of the movie, the explosion was just really stupid and took me out of the movie completely

I quite liked it because it subverts the expectations of a traditional whodunnit. When you watch one you always expect an elaborate murder scheme with a crazy motivation that no one ever expects. I like watching whodunnits, and my mind immediately starts trying to piece of what crazy elaborate scheme and motivation led to the murder based on the tiniest clues in the background.

Like the murder mystery game miles tried to stage which was solved within seconds of it starting.

When it was revealed that the whole thing was done by an incompetent moron who basically had no idea wtf he was doing the whole time, to me it was a hilarious twist on the genre as a whole

What an incredible nonsensical cop out lmao

I can't believe people are upvoting this shit

"It leads to the Whodunnit" Jesus fuck lol

There's no point arguing with people about how awful this movie was on all levels

Ohhhhh I get it now. That makes sense.

This is the correct answer OP. There is even a line explaining that it's such a sensitive system that a mobile phone can set it off. Everything else here is self indulgent nonsense.

As a Script Supervisor in TV & Film - I promise you things like this get asked to a Dir / Writer all the time and quickly we get told “it doesn’t matter” or “nobody will notice”. So it’s very possible many questions were asked but esp when the Writer IS the Director there is no checks and balances.

Seriously. That's what's keeping OP up at night?

That Kanye Mural behind Norton at that particular time was hilarious

OMG yes!

[deleted]

The scientist and the mayor almost shit themselves with panic that the tiny little piece might have fallen when bron threw it. It doesnt seem likely that you can happily smash hundreds of pounds of it with no ramifications.

The glass was all added via CGI. That's why they can safely run towards the override button without slipping.

I can see why a billionaire wouldn’t pay that much to ship it round the world only to have to look at it through plastic.

That said, the Mona Lisa is painted on wood, not canvas. So either the film goofed, or they sent Miles a fake.

Not to insult you or anything, but Norton's character literally says this after the explosion. Andi's sister then says very simply that no one is going to buy the "miracle fuel" from a billionaire that blew up his own house and the most famous painting in the world with said fuel and calls him a dumbass for not seeing that very obvious conclusion.

And also part of the reveal is the fact Benoit wasn't invited at all he just appeared because Helen asked that.

> though deeply unpopular with the wider public

Not sure what point you're making with this. Plenty of great art is unpopular in the time of its production. Widespread appreciation for the work of Van Gogh didn't happen until after his passing.

I cannot understand for the life of me all of these people in the comments who are commenting on why the glass COVERS the Mona Lisa, and not why it automatically UNCOVERS.

What bothered me was the lack of scientific possibility surrounding the new energy source. They mentioned that it was hydrogen based. Hydrogen has a melting point of −259.14 °C/ −434.45 °F so the solid crystal piece they held several times throughout the movie was not possible. At room temperature and pressure it would have quickly vaporized.

Further, hydrogen has been used as a fuel source for automobiles and has many disadvantages including the need to be pressurized and very cold for packaging. Explained well here: (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AouW9_jyZck). Storage size might not be as critical for a house but without cooling and pressurization the storage tanks would be huge. Showing a giant storage silo or underground tank in the movie would have made it more convincing.

The amount of energy that was shown just by throwing a small amount of the crystals was insane too. Like hydrogen isn’t an explosive. It’s flammable.

One of the fun twists of the movie is that there were multiple Chekhov's guns. The Mona Lisa override switch and Bron's little saying made it abundantly clear his arrogance would result in the destruction of the priceless artwork.

Yeah I'm an engineer and I came to terms with the fact that most of the science in this movie is hand wavey. That's ok! It's not a movie about technology, it's a movie about mystery.

The napkin of course doesn't even try to make sense, they never even explain what the central idea of Alpha is. The fact that hydrogen gas would leak out of residential natural gas lines is a known problem, but it's an easily solvable problem for a spacecraft or a power plant. In fact a breakthrough in hydrogen tech would be world changing if you just plan for it the right way. Like was said above, the case opens and closes based on when the plot needs it to. The robot dog carrying the luggage was a gag but how did it load and unload the luggage? The fire extinguishing system conveniently came on only once it was too late for the plot.

And again, I don't mind any of this. It's a good movie which isn't about technology, it doesn't need the tech to make sense.

[removed]

Exactly. He feigns incredulity when she says he burned the napkin. The whole thing was the other "disruptors" protecting him with lies and then turning on him as the final beat to the plot.

[removed]

Ew.

It's twofold. The first is the Mona Lisa. The second is the legal consequences coming from the disruptors turning on him. He'll be destroyed, not just his reputation but financially too.

I had a cup shatter on a counter and a shard got stuck in my hand and neck. I'm sure the chance is there that they could get glass in their eyes easily doing this. But it's a cool scene.

That was what I kept waiting for. I really thought the automatic open/close was going to be some “Chekov’s gun” that would be instrumental later on (my first thought was that something ‘important’ was hidden there).

I know the override came into play, but I really thought the movie was setting us up for the auto feature to be a major plot point.

Van Gogh never had a coven of spies and billionaires promoting his art. My point is there was little demand for it outside of as propaganda and a commodity but it was displayed everywhere and got loads of favourable criticism from complicit critics aswell as some dupes.